Actor finds 'Much Ado' about AFTLS

January 25, 2009|ANDREW S. HUGHES Tribune Staff Writer

Tea, Charlie Walker-Wise says, has been noticeably absent from Actors From the London Stage's rehearsals for "Much Ado About Nothing." Learning opportunities, however, have been plentiful for the actor and his four cast mates in the Shakespearean comedy, which AFTLS presents Wednesday through Friday at the University of Notre Dame's Washington Hall to kick off its spring tour of U.S. college campuses. "There's no director," he says by telephone from his home in London about working with AFTLS. "We direct it ourselves, so it's five actors just working together, which is an extraordinary collaborative experience." Now in its 33rd year, the company, which is based in the United States at Notre Dame and was founded by Patrick Stewart, uses just five actors, few or no props and costumes, and no set to stage two productions of Shakespeare's plays each year. As a result, each actor plays multiple roles in each production and remains onstage and part of the rehearsal all day, even when his or her characters aren't part of a scene. "Generally, you can work in a bubble and think only about your part," Walker-Wise says. "Now, you're thinking about your main part and your secondary part and everyone else's. We're used to doing our bit and going and having a cup of tea to learn (our) lines. ... Actors like their tea breaks, but we're not getting them." The actor, however, isn't complaining. Rehearsals, Walker-Wise says, have been "the most amazing and tiring bit of work" he's done in the theater, but as he talks about the process, it's clear it has energized him and made him enthusiastic about it. "Actors generally don't comment on others' work, particularly during rehearsal," which has made it "trying," he says. "The nature of the job requires us to comment on each other, and we all know how hard it is. We don't like to pass judgment on others." Only one of the five actors in "Much Ado About Nothing," Stephen Rashbrook, has been in an AFTLS production, so rehearsals have "been a whole new bubble of work" for Walker-Wise and Peter Bankolé, Thusitha Jayasundera and Joannah Tincey. "It's really a testing task, and one that we're not familiar with," he says about co-directing the play. "It's an extraordinary shift in process. ... You're sitting there commenting on what's happening, and then all of a sudden you're up and doing your bit and then changing character on a six-bit." One of Shakespeare's most popular comedies, "Much Ado About Nothing" concerns the plight of two sets of would-be lovers, Benedick and Beatrice and Claudio and Hero. As a result of mistaken identities, misheard conversations and a deception cooked up by the character of Don John, complications arise for the lovers, while Shakespeare gives Benedick and Beatrice some of the theater's finest lines of repartee. In AFTLS' production, Walker-Wise plays Benedick and the secondary characters Dogberry, "an incredibly inefficient policeman," and Conrad, "one of the mischief makers." "From Benedick's point of view, one of the main plotlines, (there are) these two very, very obstinate single-minded people who find each other," Walker-Wise says. "There's the theme of lovers finding each other, whether it be Benedick and Beatrice, who find each other through their wit, or Hero and Claudio, who find each other through extraordinary circumstances." If the play has a message, Walker-Wise says, it's that finding love is a difficult struggle, particularly for Claudio and Hero, who are the victims of Don John's deception. "All these characters have to work for what they get in the end," he says. "The tragedy of what happens to Hero brings to the fore the love between Benedick and Beatrice. They spend all their life being whip-crackers with each other, but then something happens to make them realize they want each other." Despite its use of only five actors playing multiple roles, AFTLS' productions are known for the clarity of their presentation of the story in Shakespeare's plays. "There was a point during rehearsals that we all realized we were in this strange middle ground between full performance and rehearsed reading," Walker-Wise says about the effect of AFTLS' method. "The problem with Shakespeare is that people are always trying to reinvent, and they'll say, 'We'll set it here,' but what happens is you hammer circles into squares or triangles into hexagons, and you wind up changing the play. If you say you're not going to impose any political or social period on it, you're free to let the play speak for itself." The "boldness" of the characters in "Much Ado About Nothing," he says, also should help the audience keep the players and the plot straight. Before he joined AFTLS for this production, Walker-Wise wasn't particularly familiar with the company, so he attended its fall production of "The Winter's Tale." "Also, there's something to be said that without fantastic lights and sets, the audience is forced to be imaginatively engaged," he says. "Theater of this kind really, really does make you engage with what's happening, and it becomes a meeting, I suppose, between the actors and the audience. Everybody buys into the conceit that there are five actors playing all the parts, and that alliance between the actor and the audience brings it alive."